taking pleasure in all things food

Grissini – Black For Halloween

Horrifically good

Happy Halloween!

Over the last few years Halloween has become one of my favourite holidays (to be honest, by now it is only second to Christmas). Halloween was never celebrated in my family, or the places I lived in. Nonetheless, by now it feels like a tradition.

To me a typical halloween is a day spent together with friends and family, old and young being creative and having fun. The party really is all about the preparations: You fold white napkins into ghosts and wrap biscuits in bandagees to make them look like mummies. By the evening the house is filled with spooky decorations and the dinner table is piled high with horrifically delicious food.

These grissi are quick and fun to make; they look great serverd with a blood-red beet soup.
(Of course you can omit the black ink and make regular grissini as well. So much better than the store bought variety.)

Use the kneading hooks of your whisk (or a spoon) to blend all together. After the dough starts to form turn it out onto a clean works surface and knead for about 5 minutes until you have soft dough. (I got not stains from the ink.)

Lightly oil the bowl. Place dough inside, cover with a towel and allow rising in a warm place for about 1 – 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 200C (390F).

Cover a baking tray with baking paper.

Roll out dough to a thin rectangle (about as thick as pasta).

Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut into thin strips (the tiniest bit wider than tagliatelle).

Roll each strip into an even shaped rope and place on the baking tray.

If using spice, brush with water and sprinkle with spice.

Bake for 10 (-15 minutes). They should turn lightly crispy (and if you do not use ink a touch golden)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Stored in an airtight container they will stay crisp for a few days.

Tips & Variations

I used half whole wheat spelt flour, half whole wheat bread flour. Unfortunately the latter had large bran pieces in it. I would use this combination of flours again if I was making plain grissini, but for the black sticks a flour without bran will result in a more stunning looking black grissini

I totally understand the question: when I made them I was wondering the same! Quite suprisingly you cannot taste the ink. Well, if you make a batch of grissini with ink and a batch without you can taste a faint difference between the two, but you would be hard pressed to describe what this different is. I do have to say I always use flour with body – even if I use all-purpose white flour I use organic flour with body (instead of that mass produced characterless, bleached white powder)